First Read Flash: An economic focus

Below:

President Obama kicks off a new economic push will start with a
major address at Knox College in western Illinois on Wednesday
aimed at pushing republicans to act on the economy.

Obama to outline economic vision. “President Obama will kick off a several-weeks long effort Wednesday to barnstorm the country and press resistant Republicans to work with him to bolster the economy. In the campaign, Obama will lay out his vision directly to Americans for how Washington and the private sector can put a charge into an economy that is improving only in fits and starts. He is turning to a tool — the bully pulpit — that has largely failed him on issues such as gun control and budget cuts,” USA Today reports. “This latest push will start with a major address at Knox College in western Illinois on Wednesday.”

Boehner: Don’t judge us ‘by how many new laws we create.’ House Speaker John Boehner said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday that while the country’s “legal immigration system’s broken,” he wouldn’t address whether they House would vote on a bill that included a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants: “Boehner said the immigration bill passed by the Senate was too ‘massive’ and did not contain enough ‘serious triggers’ to guarantee border security. He said the House would deal with reform ‘in chunks,’ but when he was asked whether he would allow the House to vote on a bill that included a pathway to citizenship for those 11 million undocumented immigrants, he repeatedly demurred. ‘It is not about me,’ he said. ‘This is about allowing the House to work its will.’”

Meanwhile, Boehner underscored last week he is running for re-election to his own Ohio House seat.

Cruz 2016? “On his first trip to the state that traditionally holds the nation’s first presidential electoral contest, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz met Friday with Christian pastors and state GOP members but insisted he’s not thinking about running for president,” Yahoo News reports. “’I am here,’ Cruz told reporters after a speech at the Iowa Republican Party headquarters here, ‘because I am focusing my time on trying to make the argument and win the argument that, Number one, that the free market of the United States of America has been the greatest engine of prosperity and opportunity the world has ever seen. And Number two, that our constitutional safeguards, our Bill or Rights, that protect our God-given rights that are foundational to this nation, that we need to get back to the Constitution.’”